The 1990s are over. And with the collapse of the economic
bubble, revelations about horrific corporate governance practices,
and the layoffs of thousands of Americans, an institution that some
people have long since written off as dead has been revived: the
union.

In a recent survey for the AFL-CIO, for the first time in nearly
two decades, the number of nonunion American workers willing to
join a union has increased. "After seeing so many jobs
destroyed in the recession, Americans are looking for job
protection," says Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the
Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank. (Union
workers earn 32 percent more than nonunion workers.)

"In the 1990s, workers had the idea they were free agents
and that ties to a union would only slow them down as they moved
around," says Fred Feinstein, a labor expert at the University
of Maryland. "But that idea has been decimated, and now people
just want security."

Drawing on public support, unions have launched major battles
over the past year. They've increased organizing efforts in
Southern and Western states that had prided themselves on their
nonunion work forces. West Coast dockworkers in the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union used a port strike to throttle
trans-Pacific commerce. And the Major League Baseball Players'
Association, perhaps the most visible union in the country, won
enormous concessions from management this past summer.

Organized labor leaders have shifted attention from
manufacturing and heavy industry toward white-collar and service
professions because it's harder to move them overseas. The
effort is paying off. According to a study by the Albert Shanker
Institute, a labor research organization, white-collar
professionals have become "one of the most organized segments
of the work force," forming unions or union-like work
organizations.

Smaller service and IT companies are vulnerable because they
lack financial resources to wait out a strike or shift business
overseas. And though President Bush stepped in to halt the West
Coast port strike, the government rarely takes an interest in labor
actions against smaller companies.

Though small manufacturing firms such as Barry Baird's Avis
Construction Co., a 75-person Roanoke, Virginia, business, appear
unconcerned about increased unionization. Baird doesn't think
much about unions, yet small IT and service companies--especially
software firms, cleaning services companies and restaurants--have
expressed concern because unions have won a series of victories in
these sectors. For example, Boston janitors recently used a
month-long strike to win wage increases from the contractors who
manage them.

But labor experts say small business shouldn't be overly
concerned about unionization. The majority of small firms are not
unionized, and while organized labor has become more popular with
the public, corporate scandals have also boosted the reputation of
small-business leaders, so entrepreneurs are more likely to retain
their staff's trust. (In an October survey by polling firm
Fabrizio, McLaughlin, and Associates, 68 percent of respondents
ranked small business as the most honest institution in the
country.)

Instead of panicking, entrepreneurs should concentrate on
working with unionized members of their work force on issues of
common concern. Lester Trilla, president and CEO of Trilla Steel Drum
Corp., a steel drum manufacturer in Chicago, has cooperated
with his unionized employees in their joint battle against steel
tariffs enacted by the Bush administration; he and his staff
traveled together to Washington, DC, to join a march against the
tariffs. Trilla says working with his unionized staff on this issue
has drawn them closer together and made future rifts much less
likely.

Marcus Courtney, president of the Washington Alliance of
Technology Workers, a labor organization of high-tech workers in
Washington state, agrees. "Unions are not anti-competitive or
anti-profit," Courtney says. "[For instance], we run
skill trainings for IT workers that save companies the huge cost of
upgrading their staff's skills. If management works with
unions, both can benefit."